⁍ President Donald Trump’s refusal to say if he would accept the results of November’s election has raised the specter of a disputed election.

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⁍ Mail ballots due to the coronavirus pandemic could take weeks to tally.

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⁍ The U.S. president is not actually elected by a majority of the popular vote.

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– Joe Biden’s campaign says it’s bracing for a “nightmare scenario” in which President Trump declares victory based on leading the in-person vote count in battleground states and claims the contest is being stolen from him, Reuters reports. A person briefed by the Biden campaign says the candidate’s staff is bracing for a “blue shift” in which Trump leads the in-person vote count in battleground states but disappears as mail ballots from densely populated urban areas are counted. That could lead to legal challenges in states where the race is decided by slim margins. If Trump refuses to accept the results of the election, it could take weeks or even months to resolve the issue, experts say. Under the federal Electoral Count Act, Congress is responsible for resolving disputes, not the Supreme Court. Amherst College law professor Lawrence Douglas outlined a scenario in which the results in three swing states—Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania—are so close and muddied that both sides claim victory. The Republican-controlled legislatures in each state, egged on by Trump, submit their own certificates awarding the electors’ votes to Trump, even as the states’ Democratic governors send separate certificates giving Biden the votes. States have occasionally submitted competing certificates in US history, most notably in 1876, when the election remained unsettled for months. The dispute was resolved only after officials from both parties brokered a deal giving Republican Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency in exchange for withdrawing US troops left over from Southern states.